The idea with these devices is that once you’ve had a taste of Windows 8, you’ll just want to reach out and touch the screen. (Another theory holds that with the rise of smart phones and tablets, any device that doesn’t have touch just seems unnatural.)

Still, I’m not totally sold on the concept of traditional laptops and desktops with touchscreens. The common argument against these types of devices is the risk of “gorilla arm,” the idea that prolonged use of a vertical touchscreen eventually tires out the muscles.

The main counterargument I’ve heard to this idea is that while you may not always want to get touchy-feely with a laptop or desktop, the ability to do so is nice to have. But that only holds true if the cost of the device doesn’t significantly escalate. With Acer’s and Vizio’s new machines, touch adds about $100 to the price, which in my mind pushes the feature into luxury status.

Lenovo

Ultimately most PC makers will have to figure out ways to make all their touchscreen devices convertible to some extent. Lenovo is on the right track with its IdeaPad Yoga laptops, which have keyboard panels that swivel all the way around into tablet form. The Yoga is clearly a laptop first, but it allows the track pad and keyboard to get out of the way when they’re not needed. Sony also has the right idea with the Vaio Tap 20, an all-in-one PC that can stand upright or fold flat into a tabletop tablet.

The fact that Windows 8 embraces the keyboard and track pad as well as touch has created a sort of Wild West for PC makers. They’re trying lots of ideas, and while some will be refined and improved over time, others just aren’t going to shake out. My guess is that traditional laptops and desktops with touchscreens will fall into the latter category as PC makers come up with more clever ways to integrate touch.

Anyone that says this is 'useless' doesn't take into account other realities than their own. For instance, I work in an industry which provides touch screen solutions to clients looking for an engaging interface. With all-in-one machines complete with touchscreen, it allows us to offer this at a lesser price point. Sure, the future may be gesture based, but to say that it has 'no use' is simply incorrect and narrow minded thinking.

The establishment of the fact that Windows 8 includes the keyboard and trackpad, and a touch of class to the Wild West PC makers. They are trying a lot of ideas, and although he refined and improved over some time, and others are not just going to shake. My guess is that the conventional desktop laptops and touch screens with the fall in the latter category and PC makers to find more ways to integrate smart touch.

For Tablets, touch screens are pretty much a necessary evil, but for a vertical laptop or PC screen, the necessity or advantages are a lot less well defined and their are a lot of negatives.

Probably the best thing about them is that they are easy to install and don't make the system noticeably bigger or clunkier.

Back in the 1970s I worked on the Shiva Fusion Laser system at Lawrence Livermore Radiation Laboratory and we set some plasma screens with touch screens at a low angle on the benches below the computer display screens.

They did provide an excellent way of intelligently interacting with the other screens and the gynormous computer system that ran the whole thing.

They also needed to be cleaned multiple times per day.

It is possible that a 2 screen system with the lower more horizontal screen having touch control could be a great thing, but having to select items directly on a vertical PC or wobbly laptop screen is not going to be a fun time.

Come to think of it, it might be a really useful way to use your Tablet and your PC together.

The article and comments read like a bunch of people wishing Apple had done this first and forced you into giving up the mouse and keyboard instead of giving you a top notch OS upgrade / redo that still allows backwards compatibility, choice and a learning curve. Yes that it is one sentence and it is grammatically correct.

And, oh my gosh, how could I have left out the ongoing problem of screen smear. Now, I have really dry skin AND I'm a bit of an obsessive hand washer. But that doesn't keep my tablet and phone from developing annoyingly smeared screens with minimal use. I'm running out of breath from 'fogging' screens.

I'm one of those gadget-obsessed early adopters. Mobile phone in the early mid-90s. Online since the dial-up BB glory days of the late 80s. Using social media since Friendster. Owner of several blogs since 2005. Etc.

Bona fides out of the way, I'll say that touch screens are great for smart phones. I had a non-touch Blackberry a few phones ago and it was, well, a bit clunky. Chiclet keys are a pain to type on, even for those with small, dextrous fingers. (I'm a guitarist.)

I also, of course, have a tablet. It's a beautiful piece of hardware, a Google Nexus 7, slimmer than my phone, elegant in its physical austerity, with a snappy multi-core processor and a gorgeous 1200p HD screen... behind that necessary glossy surface... and ALL THOSE REFLECTIONS...

Because, of course, a touch screen pretty well requires a gloss screen. And gloss screens seem to pick up the slightest bit of light in the background, reflecting and glaring. It makes reading or watching media a continual annoyance -- except in the dark. Looks GREAT in the dark, kudos on that front. =/

And then there's the typing.

OK, we know it, most people are passive consumers of media and content. Placidly grazing the internet, occasionally poking in a LIKE or a one line comment on Facebook.

But for those of us who actually have something to say or do, virtual keypads and lack of a mouse for fine control are a BIG pain. Even with what seems to be acknowledged as the best speech recognition around, the Nexus 7 can be a pain to use for text entry. (I type 60-80 words a minute. Being reduced to poking out 10 or 15 a minute is agony.) Things get considerably better with a 'slide/swipe' style virtual keypad app like SlideIt or the Swype keboard installed on some Android devices. But it's still nothing like having a real keyboard under your hands. And for precision pointing, fingertips really, well, to use the vernacular of the street, suck.

There will be plenty of cost-effective options for affordable touch screen laptops in the weeks ahead, I am sure. What is expensive is SSD. A hard drive with smaller SSD for booting (such as Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch) sounds like a good bet so far.

I can't figure out why so many people on these tech blogs don't like the idea of a touch screen laptop... why the heck not? It's just one more means of interacting with the computer in addition to the mouse and the pad.

A multi-touch screen on a tablet is a necessity. But a multi-touch screen on a desktop or notebook PC is frivolous and useless.

Many people think that having a multi-touch screen their desktop or notebook PC is "cool", but after paying a premium (over desktop or notebook PCs without a multi-touch screen) they will come to realize that they have wasted their money.

The reasons are plentiful:

- Multi-touch trackpads (included on notebooks, and an inexpensive extra for desktop PCs) do the same thing, but are more efficient at it with less movement required

- Trying to use multi-touch on a desktop of notebook screen results in GAS (Gorilla Arm Syndrome), a very uncomfortable condition

- Using multi-touch on a desktop or notebook screen leaves oily residue similar to, and more noticeable, than on a tablet screen

- Using multi-touch on a notebook or desktop screen pushes that screen away, since it is not held firmly in your hand like a tablet or smartphone screen

- Etc.

But what about notebooks that convert into tablets by flipping the screen around?

Those things have always been called "Tablet PCs", and have sold poorly during the past 11 years. There is no reason to believe that they will be any more popular with a different name. They have been unpopular because they are large, thick, heavy, and have much shorter battery life than popular modern tablets like the iPad that are thin, light, more portable, with a much longer real-world battery life.

Also, since the "serious" classic desktop Windows PC applications that run on them are not optimized for small screens or for multi-touch, they are not as easy to use on a multi-touch tablet as on a desktop PC.

Metro apps are in short supply, and those that are available are not good replacements for desktop Windows PC applications.

I agree with your reasons but you forgot to mention the reasons you would want to have touch.

The biggest one, I believe, is that touch is easy for users, especially those that are new to computers or not very good with using computer. Gestures like scrolling and zooming on touch just make sense without any learning. I have tried to teach classes on computers especially in elderly communities and the first thing many of them do is try to touch the screen. It just feels like a natural thing to do.

The other big reason is that developers are embracing touch based applications, especially physics based games and learning apps. Touch as an input device is here to stay and there will be apps that will sometimes require touch or are just better with touch.

On a laptop I can't see myself using it very often, but I do know I would be very happy to have it in many cases, especially when it comes to zooming in on objects and moving them in applications. However, the tablets you speak of will especially benefit. You mention that tablets failed but the reason they failed was because touch was not ready, the form factor always made sense, it was touch based computing that was not ready.